JE#10

Make a list of 10 of the most memorable characters (from novels and films) you encountered on this journey toward Border Consciousness:

Mama Chona

Felix

Concha

Lena

David

Diego

Speedy Gonzalez

Ximena

Ivon

Nancy

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Speedy: "Andale, andale! let's start this Summit on Sexual Borders. As you know, I'm not only the fastest mouse in all of Mexico, I'm also a bona fide cultural icon, so I will be moderating this panel where my comadres and compadres, the characters we've encountered will offer their views on how they've dealt with their own sexuality and the borders that have come up because of it, and why we should pay more attention to they ways it takes shape. Arriba, arriba, let's get started!

Diego: Sexuality is one of the most liberating and delicious experiences, but you can't be afraid of it eh? you have to give yourself entirely to the spiritual journey that is finding your own sexual desire, that doesn't mean it will make you more friends. I had to practically live in exile in Cuba and I know that I was stigmatized for my homosexuality, but I left my home in Cuba because of my principles and I did not compromise who i was for one second. 

Felix: I think that your situation was very different from mine Diego. I grew up in a family that never accepted my being gay and having a desire for men. It led me to make many people around me suffer, like Angie and JoEl. It even led to my death, until the day I was murdered my mother would not admit that I was gay. 

Ivon: I understand where you're coming from Felix, my own sexual borders had a lot to do with how my mother felt about my being a lesbian. I do wish that I could have counted more on her, instead I received a lot of physical abuse. But I think that what we can take away from all of our experiences is that honoring our own desires and perhaps being aware of how they manifest is important. 

Speedy: So, Ivon do you think that it's fair to say that coming to terms with your sexual borders can mean alienating yourself from your family? what do the rest of you think?

Ivon: Oh definitely. I left El Paso to get away and to have a space where I could come to terms with my own sexuality without the heteropatriarchal views my mother held. It does affect those relationships, but again we need to confront them, otherwise we can hurt others. 

Lena: I agree, if my dad had told me that he liked men, which all of us knew but Miguel Grande and the rest of the family were too homophobic to admit,I believe my mother could have been honest with herself about her love for my dad. 

Felix: I do regret that, I was too cowardly. 

David: I had to also come into my own process to define for myself my sexual borders. Diego really challenged my ideas of pleasure and desire, he showed me that being comfortable in one's own skin is an incredible source of power. 

Speedy: Orale! life is too short not to know what you like, and don't like. It's not going to be pretty and it will a messy process but it will make you that much more aware and at peace! 

Diego: exacto! ay que esperan? exploren su cuerpo y lo que les da placer!

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END

JE#9

1.
A: I was very touched by Arnoldo de Leon's They Called them Greasers: Anglo Attitudes toward Mexicans in Texas, 1821-1900. I was captivated by de Leon's detailed history of El Paso and Texas as a whole, and it complemented Romo's Ringside perfectly. Along the lines of my first answer, I feel that I learned El Paso history from the early 20th century the best and it was also a piece of history I did not know before I took the course. 

2.
A: I have read a lot of her work and this question would be difficult to answer with just one, but I feel that both the steps of mestiza consciousness and the coyolxauhqui imperative, which comes from her other theory of conocimiento, are theories I understand and that apply to my own life. The coyolxauhqui imperative for example is about having a connection to the land that is millennia old, there is a move to reclaim the connectedness to the land and to put all of our pieces back together.I often have to reconcile very different parts of myself, the fragment that make up my sense of self, such as my race, gender, sexuality, and connect them so that I can be whole. 

3.
A: I haven't had much difficulty with Anzaldua's theories in this course per se, but I am always working toward understanding how mestiza consciousness and its varying steps can be used or applied to other types of cultural products. 

5.
A: I feel that this course helped me get back in touch with my monstrous shadow-beast in ways that I hadn't done so before. Through texts such as Tex[t]-Mex and Gloria Anzaldúa's Borderlands as well as the film "Strawberry and Chocolate", I was able to identify what makes my shadow-beast come forth to the surface.  Tex[t]-Mex  helped me embrace and hone in on my Spitfire Mexican and turn the stereotype into a performance of rebellion during my oral exam. Anzaldúa's Borderlands kept me grounded and helped me remember that mestiza consciousness is messy and contradictory. Finally, "Strawberry and Chocolate" helped me identify with one of the characters, "David" whose sparkling personality and sense of self inspired me to be more brave. 

JE#8

Prior to entering this class, I had a sizable knowledge of the mujeres de Juárez femicides, having taken courses during my undergraduate that covered in detail, and having a family member who is one of the women that have gone missing. I grew up with constant attention to this issue, whether it was family members that would lament the latest development on the issue. For example when Abdul Sharif an Egyptian chemist who was sentenced to jail for the murders passed away in 2006, my entire family found it a topic for discussion, my mother amongst them was convinced that Sharif was not the murderer, evident in the bodies that would turn up despite Sharif being in jail. Although I had followed the issue because of my personal and cultural connection to it, I was not aware of the ways in which brown women's bodies had been policed along the border, i.e. Chinese women. Lubheid's text was extremely useful in articulating the specific policies implemented to keep women on a marginal status through immigration. A term I found useful in Lubheid's text was when she discussed the difficulty immigration officials had when trying to enforce racist, sexist laws such as the Page Law of 1875 which kept out what were deemed "undesirable immigrants". Amongst these "undesirables" were "Asian women coming to work in prostitution" (Lubheid, 36). 
Making connections between the juárez murders and the Chinese women who immigrated to the U.S. after the Page Law, it is safe to say that both groups of women are deemed "undesirables" by the American federal government, and are thus viewed as "collateral damage" in the U.S. struggle to secure its borders. This complete disregard for women's bodies shows the destructive and monstrous side the "Shadow-Beast" of U.S. empire and Mexican cultural tyranny. 
From the early days of the Juárez femicides in the early 1990s, little has been seen in popular culture and cultural products that talk about this decades-long femicide, however there is a growing number of texts that are changing that. The novel Desert Blood by Alicia Gaspar de Alba and the film "Bordertown" both of which we read and saw in class are cultural texts that deal with the Juárez murders. I personally feel that Desert Blood successfully depicted the issue in a way that highlighted the U.S. and Mexico's disregards for brown women's bodies, the numerous structures in power such as the Border Patrol, the Maquiladora industry, and the local Juárez police amongst other who are complicit in the muder of these women. In terms of effectiveness in raising this issue to mainstream consciousness, i feel that due to Desert Blood's release date, many who were not aware were introduced to the issue via the novel, and got a more multi-dimensional look at the issue. On the other hand, "Bordertown" starring Jennifer Lopez did not gather the critical acclaim that it sought and had a mixed reaction amongst audiences. The film also employs the white savior complex via its protagonist (played by Jennifer Lopez) whose journalist background enables her to get to the bottom of the murders within a few months. At best, "Bordertown" most likely got the conversation going around these issues, but did not provide enough information for people to have a complex discussion on the femicides. 

JE#7

I was raised in a deeply Catholic region in Jalisco Mexico, however my family's relationship to Catholicism varies. I grew up with a entrenched belief that I needed to attend mass every Sunday in our local parroquia and that the reigning Catholic deity in my hometown La Virgen de San Juan was to be revered and honored on her own Holiday in August. This short quote on her via my hometown's Wikipedia article might provide some context: 

"It is best known as the home of a small image of the Virgin Mary called Our Lady of San Juan de los Lagos or in Nahuatl Cihuapilli, which means “Great Lady.” Since the first major miracle ascribed to her in 1632, she has been venerated especially for cases involving mortal danger. The miracles ascribed to her have made the basilica in which she is found a major tourist attraction, which has shaped the town’s history to this day."

My hometown of San Juan de los Lagos is one of the largest religious pilgrimage sites in Mexico. San Juan is second in pilgrimage to Mexico's City's image of the Virgen de Guadalupe and receives millions of pilgrims every single year. Thus, I grew up in a city of constant devout and dedicated visitors whose Catholicism had made them walk, bike, drive, fly hundreds of miles just to catch a glimpse and ask for a miracle from the image of the virgen. How do I, a San Juan de los Lagos native find my own religion then? I followed all of the Catholic sacraments and attended mass and cathecism for years,  attended a strict all girls, Catholic private school until 4th grade; on paper I was groomed to become just a devout as those who visited my hometown every day. What really changed my religious beliefs was my immigration to the United States when i was 10 years old. It allowed me distance from the city, and it was then that I began to see how limiting and contradicting Catholicism was to the person i was becoming.My non practicing Catholicism has not created a border within my family, my mother who was always very critical of the Catholic church as a divorced woman, understood my decision, yet she still urges me to pray and believe. Nowadays, I refer to myself as a cultural Catholic, because there are many traditions, customs and cultural rites that although Catholic, are a part of home. Going back to San Juan I cannot ignore the pilgrims, I cannot ignore that my hometown's economy depends on a religious image. I'm well aware that living in the U.S. allows me the freedom to question these beliefs, and that if my family and hometown community knew of my views they would ostracize me. But perhaps the best part of my story is the contradiction of this distance, looking on San Juan from the U.S. and missing it dearly while still choosing to remain far away. 

JE#6

I did not feel that any one character deserved either a 0-1 or a full 10 due to the fact that there is no way to measure cultural schizophrenia, instead I can only approximate what i feel is a range based on my observations and readings of the characters. With that disclaimer, let's begin:

3 Lena: I was drawn to the character of Lena because of her immediate reaction to the murder of her father. Lena does not agree with the judicial system and the way in which the Anglo officer got away with murder. She also rebels on a daily basis and is well-aware of the sexism and slut shaming that occurs in her family. I did not score her higher because I feel that the brief instances in which she appeared were based on the immediate grief of her father's death and her character was not fully developed, also she still obeyed patriarchal authority i.e. Miguel Grande when she began to question the system. 

3 Lola: She is a woman who is in complete control and awareness of her sexuality, and she does not apologize for it. However, she is still very much affected by Miguel Grande's actions and feelings toward her, clouding her judgement and making her dependent on him emotionally.

3 JoEl: I did not give JoEl a higher score for a couple of reasons, (1) he has internalized sexism and thi s shows in the way in which he treats Angie, often belittling her and making fun of her accent (linguistic terrorism). However, he is a victim of sexual abuse and has no idea how to reconcile this, in turn he is emotionally unstable and unable to process what has happened. 

3 Nina: She allows herself to learn and she uses spirituality to find meaning. however she is very violent toward her children in her way of punishing them. 

5 Felix: This one I found quite hard to grade. Although I understand that a lot of his actions stemmed from his closeted homosexuality, he used his male privilege and status as family patriarch to sexually abuse JoEl and also treated Angie unfairly. Finally, he inherited linguistic terrorism from Mama Chona, who taught him to speak "Castiian Spanish."

6. Angie: She has inherited internalized sexism and patriarchy, by negating Felix's sexual abuse of JoEl, allowing it to continue for years, fully knowing that Felix is seen as charismatic amongst his family. She also internalizes a lot of this sexism in letting her son JoEl humiliate her. 

7 Miguel Chico: Although he is far away from the family by choice, he still holds a lot of stigmatized views about his family. He has internalized racism and linguistic terrorism in his policing of language and critique of is own family. He has a deep seated sense of shame for his family, and does not recognize that they form a part of him. 

7Juanita: Her character holds a lot of internalized sexism and patriarchy in her treatment of Miguel Grande's affair with Lola. Juanita remains with Miguel Grande even after she finds out about the affair and does not get a divorce. 

9 Miguel Grande: The biggest patriarch in the novel, he benefited greatly from this status and had an impact on the lives of every character. His affair with Lola allowed him to benefit from marriage with Juanita and still keep Lola around without any accountability. He is the de-facto Mama Chona, who hates and denies their indigenous ancestry and treats Maria the maid badly simply because of her background. He also speaks the imitation "Castilian Spanish" and has a bad relationship with Miguel Chico after the latter refuses to conform to Miguel Grande's standards of masculinity. 

9. Mama Chona: I gave her the highest score because of her specific position as reigning matriarch, and because her actions reflected significantly on the rest of the characters. It was her own internalized racism, sexism and historical amnesia, as well as her homophobia that created the family's set of values. She spoke an imitation of Castillian Spanish to conceal her indigenous background and held racist ideas about skin color, hating her own brown skin. Furthermore, she defers her authority only to Miguel Grande, internalizing patriarchal norms. 

JE#5

"We had no choice. We had to pick up our feet and put on our sandals and walk. Away from our homes, our fields, away from our mountains and valleys, away from our rivers and sacred place, away, even, from our sky" (Alcalá, 5) 

These lines, written by Kathleen Alcalá in her novel The Flower in the Skull and uttered by the character Concha, could have been said and are probably felt by many immigrants who travel (and perish) through the Sonoran desert and into Arizona today. Alcalá's story of Concha and her Opata family's journey across the very desert holds many parallels to the bodies depicted in the documentary "Bodies on the Border" where Concha's words of having "no choice" but to walk away from all that is familiar and head north are met with the bodies filmed by Marc Silver. In the New York Times article that accompanies the short documentary, Silver exclaims, "Even as fewer people are believed to be crossing the border illegally, the number of migrant deaths has remained high (the remains of at least 116 people have been found this year in Arizona), and a greater proportion is likely dying" (Silver). "Bodies on the Border" makes the argument that increased militarization of the U.S. Mexico border has led to an increased number of deaths, and unidentified bodies in the Arizona desert. While this is portrayed in the documentary vis-a-vis a day in the life of Dr. Bruce Anderson and Robin Reineke, I am left wondering, who is dedicating their life's work to identifying the bodies of the women of Juárez, not too far away in another desert mass grave. Unlike Concha who was able to survive and leave her desert home, how many of the Opata who remained in the contentious territory where Mexicans, Yaqui and Apache fought perished under such a situation?  What the unidentified bodies found in the Arizona desert, Concha and the women of Juarez know for sure is that they had no chocie but to seek out opportunities in order to survive. These narratives of brown bodies walking away from their sky, their mountains, and their homes in search for a better economic outcome are lost in the rhetoric of the Obama administration. instead, the desert becomes a place where death is a daily occurrence, both in fiction and in real life. 

JE#4

Reading and reflecting on David Romo's archival photos and insights on El Paso after the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 and the Bath Riots of 1917 reminded me of the contradictory nature of El Paso and Juárez then and today. After Chinese workers began to migrate illegally to El Paso after 1882, as Romo asserts "Anti-Chinese sentiment cropped up just as fast as Chinatown itself" (198), thus the identity crisis of a region that perceived itself as a slice of Americana, had to deal with the reality of a growing Chinese population, in addition to its Mexican-American population and their rebellion against racism, case in point the Bath Riots in 1917. One of the photos in Romo's text that struck me was that of a Chinese "English class" (on page 198) taken in 1905. To paraphrase Lubheid, the Chinese Exclusion Act marked the beginning of an institutionalized immigration rhetoric and policy that concerned itself with reuniting families and maintaining the nuclear family model while maintaining a deep resentment for Chinese immigrants. In short, immigration's tight-grip on who could immigrate kept single women from arriving to El Paso in large quantities. The photo of this English class in a visual representation of these policies, where there is a clear majority of men, except for a young girl and her father in the front row. Part of El Paso's cultural schizophrenia was also its deep anti-Chinese sentiment and northern Mexico's treatment of peti bourgeois Chinese. As Romo explain, "by the 1920s, El Paso's Chinatown had either vanished or gone underground" (200). I expected the Anglo attitudes toward the Chinese, but I was not prepared to read about Mexican revolutionaries during the Porfiriato raiding and killing innocent Chinese in Torreón for example. It was definitely an eye-opening reading that kept both El Paso and northern Mexico's cultural schizophrenia in perspective. 

The second photo that struck me is that of Mexican men waiting to be doused in chemicals in a quarantine plant before they cross the border in 1917 (on page 234). This photo depicts the inhumane treatment many Mexicans experienced at the hands of the public health and border officials, who along with then El Paso mayor Tom Leary felt that Mexicans carried disease with them. This blatantly racist and inhumane practice of sanitizing reflects the deep seated anxiety Anglo El Paso felt at the prospect of Mexican immigrants. Just as the Chinese resorted to underground tunnels in resistance to the constant harassment by Anglo police, Mexican migrants led by Carmelita Torres refused to be subject to humiliation and ill treatment when the Bath Riots ensued in 1917. These photos are not just telling of these two populations but also act as a form of resistance, proving that El Paso was then, in many ways a region on constant contradictions.